1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to handling devices for automatically produced packages or other production units, and more particularly, to certain new and useful improvements in a collating system which is particularly useful in transferring such packages or production units away from the production machinery and into shipping containers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Modern production and packaging technology have created the ability to produce large volumes of a broad range of packages, particularly relatively small units, such as plastic individual coffee creamers, single service units of jams, jellies, and the like; boxes of tacks, small nuts, bolts, screws, and the like; individual service cups of butter or margarine, etc. Examples of such single use dispensing packages are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,986,640, 4,493,574, 4,611,715, 4,720,014, 4,724,982 and can be produced by machines such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,700,532 and 4,819,406.
Many previously known package structures or other production units can be simply dumped at random into a shipping container and shipped with little or no difficulty, for example where the soft "pillow" pouches of the dispenser packages described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,493,874 contain products like ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, mayonnaise, various medicinal solutions or gels, such as alcohol, iodine, surgical jelly, etc.
In many instances, however, packages or other production units are assembled from both flexible and stiff materials, plastics, foils, paperboard, etc. These articles generally cannot be randomly dumped into a shipping container, but must be collated (organized) and discretely packed into containers for shipping, retail sale or dispensing so that they can be shipped without being damaged in transit. Also, in the case of dispenser packages, it is often necessary that they be handled and shipped carefully to ensure that they will have proper end use qualities and can be easily dispensed when desired. With modern equipment capable of producing such dispenser packages or other units at rates of hundreds or even thousands per minute, carrying out such collating and packing by hand is excessively expensive, and thus, commercially detrimental.
As a result, a variety of packing and collation systems have been previously developed. Many of such prior systems utilize suction cups which simultaneously pick up a number of articles by suction, remove them from the production machine and transfer a set of one or more of them by mechanical means to another location where a box or paperboard tray is waiting to receive the transferred sets. The cycle ends when the suction cup assembly releases the article sets and mechanically travels back to the producing machine to pick up another set of articles and repeat its action. As the suction cup assembly moves back to the machine, the filled tray or box is removed and replaced by an empty one to await loading. As will be realized, such a system has many limitations and drawbacks. For example, if it is to pick up forty articles at each cycle, it must have forty operating suction cups (or stations of one or more cups). These suction cups are relatively fragile, and must be attached to a vacuum system by piping or tubing, necessitating a complex air valving system. Should anything in the air-vacuum system clog, even at a single cup, then the entire system, both production and collation, must be stopped while repairs are made. This obviously leads to expensive "down time" during which no packages are produced and the operator labor is idle. Similarly, if any of the vacuum tubes breaks or becomes punctured or develops a leak, the system also becomes inoperable, again resulting in costly repair "down time".
Moreover, previously known collating systems are generally limited in that they can only collate in a single pattern. There are previously known collating systems which are adjustable, but these are very expensive, costing on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars, some even higher. Furthermore, altering these prior systems to accommodate different patterns again requires expensive "down time" as well, since the machine must be stopped to make the pattern changeover. In addition, the trays into which such devices place the individual or sets of production units are not inexpensive, each costing on the order of two to ten cents, or possibly more, depending upon their size and the material from which they are fabricated. Then there is the additional expense of general maintenance; these prior collators must be regularly checked, repaired, lubricated and cleaned.
There are other previously known systems for collating various articles produced by automatic machinery ("production units") which are too numerous to list, all of which involve mechanical means such as pushers, mechanical claws, forks, pincers, spatulas, centrifugal discs, and gating. All of these previously known collating systems suffer similar drawbacks in that they are generally expensive, have only limited patterns of collation and require costly regular maintenance.
Having seen many of the aforesaid collators, and in fact having been granted U.S. Pat. No. 3,631,652 on a mechanized collator myself, I have now devised a system which is totally different from any I have ever seen or observed, which system is of unique simplicity, requires minimal maintenance and permits a significant variety of collating patterns.